


fawn flu

by xylosis



Category: Naruto
Genre: Digital Art, Family Fluff, M/M, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Sickfic, also i love baby shikamaru and chouji, also includes an original drawing, shikaku and yoshino are good parents
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-05
Updated: 2020-12-05
Packaged: 2021-03-10 06:28:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,866
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27889795
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/xylosis/pseuds/xylosis
Summary: A young Shikamaru comes down with the flu bug that's going around the Academy.(also features an original drawing!)
Kudos: 19





	fawn flu

**Author's Note:**

> HEY GUYS welcome back to my channel i haven’t posted here in like 4 years lmao ☆ the backstory for this little ditty is that i just truly love shikaku SOOO much and think he’s such a great character. the shogi scene always gets me. had this fic idea awhile back and drew up the drawing in this, and later decided to write it up into a fic after smoking a doink. enjoy ♡

Shikamaru didn’t feel well.

It wasn’t awful. He could tolerate it, and the school day was almost over anyways. He would just go home and take a long nap, and feel fine after, he’d decided.

Iruka-sensei had been especially stringent with reminding he and the other Academy students to wash their hands, continually harping on the fact that the flu was going around. 

Chouji had been out sick with the flu the week prior, and from what Chouji had described, Shikamaru was sure that he didn’t want to catch it. If it was bad enough to make Chouji, of all people, uninterested in eating for almost a whole week, it had to be bad.

Shikamaru’s eyelids felt ridiculously heavy, and he slumped down in his seat. He felt a stir in his chest and pushed his inner elbow against his face, letting out a string of sudden, rattling coughs.

“Shikamaru? Are you alright?” Iruka-sensei asked, pausing from his lecture and narrowing his eyes at him analytically.

“Yeah, yeah,” Shikamaru replied dismissively, irritated and slightly embarrassed to have been singled out. He swallowed thickly, noticing a twinge of pain in his throat as he did.

He pillowed his head into his arms, and closed his eyes. He really needed a nap. 

He drifted off, and was awoken by Chouji shaking his shoulder awhile later as the other students were gathering up their things, as class had apparently ended.

“Oi, Shikamaru!” He said, as his friend blinked his eyes open.

“Are you okay?” He asked, tilting his head and blinking at him.

“Yeah,” Shikamaru mumbled. “I just need a nap. I’m tired.”

“Oh, well, do you want to go to the candy store with me first? My mom gave me a bonus on my allowance, so we can get a ton,” Chouji offered, grinning widely.

“Mm, not today,” Shikamaru said. “Maybe tomorrow. I want to go home.”

“Aww,” Chouji sighed in disappointment, brightening soon after. “I’ll walk you home, then, okay?”

“Alright.”

Shikamaru and Chouji walked their usual route towards the Nara residence and Shikamaru was feeling more and more unwell with each step.

“Sure you’re okay?” Chouji asked, tilting his head in concern. “You’re so quiet today.”

Shikamaru shrugged. “I don’t know. I’m so tired I can barely walk. I feel weird,” he mumbled.

“Weird? Oh no, you’re not getting the flu, right?!” Chouji asked, concerned.

“I better not be. I’ll be mad if I caught it from you,” He huffed.

“You can’t pin that on me!” Chouji said, defensively. “I wasn’t contagious by the time I came back to school!”

“Yeah, alright,” Shikamaru said, waving his hand dismissively. 

They soon arrived at the Nara residence and the two boys said their goodbyes. Shikamaru pushed the door open and headed inside, wasting no time slipping his shoes off and making his way towards his room.

“Shikamaru?” His mother called, stepping out and stopping him in the hallway.

“You’re back earlier than usual,” She commented. “Why’s that?”

“I wanted to take a nap,” He replied.

She sighed. “I should have known. Well, I’ll wake you up after an hour and a half. You can’t nap the whole evening away.”

 _Why not?_ Shikamaru resisted the urge to retort, and instead just nodded, padding into his room. He changed into a more comfortable set of clothes, and crawled onto his bed.

A shiver traveled up his spine, and he nestled himself beneath his blanket, but the shivering didn’t cease. 

_Troublesome_ , he thought grumpily. He curled up and closed his eyes.

A few minutes passed, and his shivering wouldn’t improve. He braced his limbs closer to his body and tugged his blankets closer, trying to get warm to no avail.

He found himself overcome with a sudden and painful coughing fit, his lungs seeming to rattle and burn from within. 

He was feeling worse and worse with each passing moment. His head and back had begun to hurt from the force of his rapidly worsening cough, and he was freezing. He couldn’t fall asleep. Instead, he was forced to lie where he was, shivering and clutching his blanket around him tightly.

He laid there, coughing in short sporadic bursts for a few minutes before his door opened.

“Shikamaru?” He vaguely heard his mother’s voice from across the room, but felt too awful to move and open his eyes to acknowledge her. He heard the lamp click on and his mother hum softly in concern, and a hand was pressed against his forehead.

“Oh, Shikamaru,” She murmured, her voice unusually warm with motherly concern. “You’re sick, baby. You’re burning up.” She moved her hand to rub his shoulder. Shikamaru felt too ill to appreciate how uncharacteristically gentle his mother was being.

“I’m cold,” He mumbled, blearily reaching a hand out toward her, suddenly craving physical reassurance.

“You have chills because you have a fever,” She explained, taking his hand, and squeezing it affectionately. “I’ll be right back, okay?”

Shikamaru didn’t respond, but a couple minutes later he felt the slight weight of another blanket being laid over him. 

“I need to take your temperature, Shikamaru. Open up and put this under your tongue.”

Shikamaru miserably parted his lips, and allowed her to prod the probe beneath his tongue.

He heard the sound of a few small beeps a moment later, and the thermometer was pulled out of his mouth. He heard his mother murmur with worry about the high reading.

“39.4....” She sighed to herself, worriedly. “I’m going to give you some medicine, Shikamaru, it’ll help you feel better. Sit up,” She whispered.

Shikamaru shook his head, and began forcefully coughing, the fit leaving him breathless with his lungs and throat aflame when it finally ended.

“I can’t,” He whimpered, struggling to catch his breath and fight back the urge to cry.

“We can wait a little bit, but you need to take some medicine soon to get your fever down, baby.”

“ _...Kaa-chan_ ,” Shikamaru choked out. “I’m really, really cold,” he continued, shivering audibly. “Can I have another blanket?”

“You only feel cold because of the fever, Shikamaru. Your body is burning hot, and more blankets might make it worse,” She explained, touching his cheek and gently stroking her thumb across his cheekbone.

She laid a cool rag over his forehead, turned the lamp off and went to close the blinds and draw his curtains.

She kissed his cheek and was murmuring something to him about being nearby if he needed anything, but he was beginning to drift off.

...

He awoke to a harsh coughing fit that overtook him entirely, and he pushed himself upright, coughing so hard he felt like he couldn’t get a breath in between. When the coughing finally stopped, he wilted back down against his bed, gasping desperately for air, completely sapped of strength with his vision wavering. He wheezed, struggling to get air back into his burning lungs.

He almost wondered at first if he was imagining it when he blearily saw his father’s silhouette enter his room, coming to his bedside. But his image came into clearer view as he slowly blinked, and couldn’t get his mouth to produce words as his father gently eased him upright, wrapped his upper body with a blanket, and lifted him out of bed. 

Shikamaru was so weak he found himself unable to do anything but limply lie against his father’s shoulder, wheezing with each breath.

“It’s alright,” He murmured, patting his son’s back, carrying him out into the kitchen. He could hear a quiet conversation between his parents.

“You didn’t have to bring him out here, you know. I could have brought his medicine to his room,” His mother gently chided, fondness in her voice.

“I know...” His father murmured, and Shikamaru found comfort in the vibration of his voice from where he laid against him. “Remember when he was a baby? He liked being held when he was sick. I’m sure it’s still true now.”

“He was tiny then. He’s almost 8 now, you know,” She said, reaching out to touch her son’s back.

“I won’t be able to for much longer,” Shikaku pointed out. Shikamaru heard his mother give a soft, affectionate chuckle.

“Shikamaru?” She said gently, rubbing his back.

He opened his eyes, blinking slowly at her.

“I need to give you some medicine, okay? It will help you feel better. Dad made a special trip to bring you the right type.”

Shikamaru nodded, slowly lifting his head up. He watched lazily as his mother poured out a large spoonful of syrup, and cooperatively swallowed it down when she brought the spoon to his mouth.

“Good boy,” She said softly, smiling at him in a way uncharacteristic of her usual stringent demeanor. 

“One more thing,” She encouraged, taking a cup of water off of the counter, and bringing it to his lips. “Drink.”

He hadn’t realized that he felt thirsty until then. He took a few gulps of water, relishing the way its coolness soothed his throat.

Shikamaru let his eyes fall closed and slumped back down against his father’s shoulder, appreciating the relief his warmth brought from his chills.

“Any appetite, Shikamaru?” Shikaku asked, placing a comforting hand against his back.

“No,” Shikamaru whispered, without having to think twice. 

“I figured not. Do you have a sore throat? Body pains?” He asked.

Shikamaru nodded.

“It sounds like you have the flu, Shikamaru,” Yoshino explained softly.

“Chouji had it last week,” Shikamaru replied in a weak, raspy voice.

“Chouza told me,” Shikaku said, beginning to carry his son back to his room. “You’ll feel very weak and ill for a few days, but you’ll be fine.”

Shikaku laid him back down in his bed, laying blankets over him. 

“Go to sleep. You need to rest to feel better.”

“Dad?” Shikamaru whispered, barely audible, as he curled onto his side.

“What is it?” He asked, dipping a washcloth in the bowl of cold water that Yoshino had left at his bedside.

“How long until the medicine starts helping?” Shikamaru asked, his voice tight and wobbly, clearly on the verge of tears. 

Shikaku felt a pang of heartache at the sound of his son fighting tears. He was so resilient, and wasn’t ever needlessly dramatic. If he was on the verge of crying, he felt _bad_. He wrung out the washcloth and folded it, gently pressing it against his forehead. 

“It should kick in soon. Just breathe, and try to go to sleep,” He murmured.

Shikamaru was quiet for a long moment before he uttered a shaking sob. He’d never felt this sick before, and the throbbing headache paired with his other symptoms was all-consuming. He could hardly remember what it felt like to not be in so much pain.

“I know. I’m sorry you’re feeling so bad,” Shikaku said, hoping he was being soothing. He sat down on the side of the bed and laid a hand on his shoulder, rubbing warmly. Shikamaru gave a coughing sob. “Breathe,” he reminds. 

It takes him a minute to calm down and regulate his breathing, and Shikaku sits with him until he manages it. 

“Sleep, Shikamaru,” He murmurs, smoothing a stray hair from his face, and Shikamaru doesn’t argue.


End file.
